


Listen

by hunter15



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A fix it where Cas actually gets help from the Winchesters, Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Human!Castiel - Freeform, I am bitter and resentful, Season 9, mentions of blood and injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunter15/pseuds/hunter15
Summary: Dean is talking. Castiel isn't listening.He’s talking in that lively, animated way he sometimes gets when they return from a successful hunt – his words spilling freely and happy but never proving very substantive. So no, he doesn’t listen. He just lets their idle chatter blur into the background in the same way he used to be able to dull the whispers of his siblings in his mind. Present, but not distracting. Just out of focus.A series of moments while Castiel adapts (or fails to adapt) to being human. He learns that the world is much more dangerous when he's facing it with human fragility. He's always known that about his friends, but it's different now that he can do nothing to fix it. He doesn't entirely know how to handle this. But, perhaps, he should pay more attention to Dean when he talks.





	Listen

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative to season 9. Dean finds Castiel immediately after he becomes human.
> 
> Note warnings in tags; anxiety, depression, blood and injury. Lots of introspection about humanity.

Dean is talking and Castiel isn’t listening.

He can hear the words – frantic and urgent and accompanied by a hand on his shoulder.  But it hurts and it hurts so  _badly_ that he shrugs Dean off and struggles to his feet alone.  

He’s human now – he can feel that in the way this vessel suddenly feels fragile, in the way his hands are shaking, in the way the physical pain threatens to overwhelm him. He can’t calm himself enough to focus on what Dean is saying beyond catching odd words he can’t follow until the end of the sentence.

He’s afraid because Dean’s is the only voice he can pick up. His mind is quiet. Isolated. He can’t hear his siblings. He’d always known they were there even if he’d cut himself off from their shared consciousness and now-

 Now he can’t hear _anything_ beyond Dean’s panicked, confused questions.

“-wrong? What hurts?” Dean is asking when Castiel tries to focus.

Everything. It’s _everything_ , Dean. But he can’t say it; Castiel isn’t sure there are words in Dean Winchester’s native language to explain this kind of everything. If there are words, Cas certainly doesn’t know them.  It’s an everything that seems to start in his bones (and today they feel every bit like they belong to him. He is no longer a guest in this vessel; these bones are his bones and it hurts.) And he can’t leave. This pain belongs to him now. 

He feels like there should be gaping wounds where his wings used to be but he knows they were made of nothing tangible. He knows the scars won’t show but he can feel them, he can feel what’s _missing._

Cas has no idea what he says, or how he explains any of this to Dean but he hears the muddled, distraught words tumbling from his mouth and he watches as comprehension draws across his best friend’s face. He doesn’t remember what either of them says, but he knows they both understand that everything Castiel is feeling right then, he’s feeling as a human.

* * *

Dean is talking but Castiel isn’t listening. 

He’s talking in that lively, animated way he sometimes gets when they return from a successful hunt – his words spilling freely and happy but never proving very substantive. Cas doesn’t really need to listen to know that Dean is telling them how well they did – how it “was obvious once we realised what we were dealing with, right?” Words to that effect, anyway, more than likely.

Cas knows that if he were to look at him, he’d be able to see the rare bright grin that seems much less frequent these days. He knows today that every movement of Dean’s body will be portraying him as the victor and today, he is. Today is a good day.

Sam seems to be responding enough to keep Dean happy – and he’s talking in the same cheerful, proud tone as his brother. Cas doesn’t feel the need to contribute and his silence goes unnoticed, covered by the sounds of the fridge opening and the cracking of beer can lids. 

So no, he doesn’t listen. He just lets their idle chatter blur into the background in the same way he used to be able to dull the whispers of his siblings in his mind. Present, but not distracting. Just out of focus.

Castiel’s attention is held by the bruise forming around his wrist and the small scratches on the palms of his hands. He’d landed awkwardly after tripping over a raised tree branch. Foolish, he thought, but human bodies lacked the natural acute awareness of their surroundings that angels took for granted.

It hadn’t occurred to him to think about how badly gravel must sting human hands until he'd seen his blood on the wrong side of his skin (because he supposes it does belong to him now; these are no longer borrowed veins). It doesn’t hurt so much now but Castiel is transfixed by the blossoming bruise, by the way the water tinges red when he finally slips out of the room to wash his hands in the bathroom. He can’t look away from the marks the world leaves on his skin now.

It hurts when he moves his arm too much. He tells himself it’s that that brings frustrated tears to his eyes. It isn’t the fact that there’s a gaping, jagged hole where his Grace used to be and there’s nothing he can draw on to heal the day’s battle wounds.

* * *

Dean is talking. Castiel isn’t listening.

This hunt wasn’t so easy. It’s too difficult to concentrate and he can’t think beyond the desperate way Sam had shouted to him for help in that agonised, stricken way that always tells Castiel that Dean is hurt. He can’t forget the way the younger brother had instinctively blurted out, “Can you fix this?” with his voice shaking but his gun still steadily trained on the door. The silence while they both remember that Castiel has no power fix this in the slightest is deafening.

Cas wonders if the way his heart aches will kill him. He marvels at the way the room suddenly seems airless and too small and yet here he is. Alive. Breathing. He doesn’t have time to dwell: Dean’s situation is far more urgent than Castiel’s broken heart.

So no, he isn’t listening to Dean’s muddled rambling – he’s talking utter nonsense that Castiel refuses to hear, refuses to entertain for even a moment because Dean is going to be _fine_. He can feel the hunter’s unfocused gaze on him while he pleads and bargains with Castiel; demands for Sam’s safety, requests for Cas to run; dizzy, breathless “I think I’m dying today” gibberish that Castiel doesn’t want to hear.

Sam has a gun in his hands and his attention fixed on a werewolf. Cas doesn’t particularly hear when the bullet is fired and when it hits its mark but he assumes it’s successful because Sam is soon by his side helping.

Castiel has Dean’s life in his hands and his attention fixed on the blood that seems to spill around his fingers even when he has pressure on the wound. Neither of the brothers hear the desperate prayer Castiel is repeating over and over and over and over and over in his head – an apology, a plea for his Grace, a plea to be pardoned long enough to fix Dean because it isn’t his fault that Castiel became so fragile and helpless and _please-_  

He assumes it’s unsuccessful because when he presses his fingers to the injured hunter’s forehead desperately, the only result is the quiet, hopeful look in Dean’s eyes. Unwavering belief that somehow, Cas can fix this.

Cas doesn’t stay to watch the inevitable disappointment. He lets Sam take over and steps back quickly.

He turns his back to call 911 and wishes he were able to make the lady on the phone understand the entirety of his emergency. “My friend is bleeding.” _And I can’t fix him._

* * *

Dean is talking. Cas isn’t listening.

It’s late and he sounds sleepy, chattering idly over the laughter track of the show they’re all watching – he’s probably not saying much important. Instead, Cas keeps his attention focused on the television, frowning a little as the recorded people laugh brightly, like the incomprehensible joke is the height of humour. Castiel likes the laughter track though, even if the Winchesters don’t. It’s helping him learn when he should smile, even if he doesn’t entirely understand the joke.

_“Cas?”_

He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to this - to watching supposedly-funny television shows and being acutely aware of the cold condensation trailing slowly down the beer bottle he’s clutching onto his hand. He can’t imagine there being a time where he isn’t so distractingly aware of the beating of his heart and the finite number of breaths in his chest. He is no longer unbreakable. He is no longer eternal. He is fragile.

_“Cas.”_

He watches as the family on-screen share a meal together, exchanging news of their day and Cas is struck by the normality of the situation. They are unaware that their human days are numbered and if they are, they have forgotten. Castiel can feel the blood in his veins and the air in his lungs and-

“Castiel!” Castiel notices this time. Dean is talking louder. Clearer. The use of his full name is jarring. Dean and Sam rarely call him that and hearing it almost yelled at him by an apparently impatient Dean Winchester drags him from his thoughts. Cas thinks he might have been trying to catch his attention for a while, considering the incredulous look on his friend's face when he actually looks at him. 

Cas frowns, looking around the room as though seeing it for the first time. Dean and Sam are on the couch next to Castiel’s armchair – Sam apparently sound asleep already, beer bottle a little precarious in his hand. He thinks Dean should perhaps be quiet and allow him to rest. “Yes?” Castiel asks despite that, though, scratching the label from his own beer bottle.

There’s a pause – both of them just watching one another for a moment. Then Dean talks, and he’s talking more quietly than usual; his apprehensive voice tells Castiel this is serious. He knows that just-drunk-enough haze hanging around Dean's words that makes him honest but always afraid - like these are words that are not made to be overheard. It sounds like each one costs Dean something to say. 

So, Castiel listens to every word he says. He thinks maybe it’s the first time he’s really listened in weeks.

He listens when Dean points out that they’ve noticed Castiel is struggling; the apology that they don’t know how to help more; the careful reassurances that at the very least, he isn’t alone. He listens when Dean promises in the most roundabout, awkward way, to help. But Cas believes him.

So, when Dean falls quiet eventually, drowning his words in alcohol, Castiel can’t help but feel at least a little better. He offers Dean a grateful smile and a murmur of thanks. He doesn’t try to explain what he’s going through just yet though – that’ll come a little way down the road once Cas has found the right words to finally tell him that he still feels like part of him is missing, that he’s lost and frightened and _alive_ and how overwhelming it is to feel all of those things.

For now, it is enough just to listen.


End file.
